Some days it’s just harder to write something. Since this journal is primarily a discipline device to keep me in the writing mode, I occasionally jerk at my chains and find that it is a chore to cough something up and get it on the screen. I need a lot of disciplining. Just ask Eunie.* The thing that makes it possible is my camera. As in one period of my life when I never left the house without a gun tucked in my snuggie holster, I now carry a camera wherever I go. Believe me, a camera is better. I now pity the gun toting souls.

I did get one pleasant giggle today as we were walking to a camera store on one of Hamilton’s surreal streets:

What interesting character lives behind the door of this modest house? I’m not talking about the dog. The flowers hand-painted on the chairs are another clue. I could go on and on about the little tickles that I feel in my brain when I contemplate this pseudo-warning, but that would spoil it for you. Just stare at if for a few moments and appreciate the layered humour of it.

A few metres on down the street we came across this nice bit of community art:

Instinct moved my hand to my camera. “Very amusing”, I thought, and we remarked to each other how the scene blended the past and the present. How clever.

It wasn’t until I got the image up in Photoshop that I discovered the true cleverness. I realised, somewhat belatedly, that the painting is of the street corner across from which we were standing. Look carefully at the lower right corner of the wall painting. You will see that the painting itself appears in the painting. It is, in a sense, a meta-image. It is recursive. In fact, in philately, this would be called a “recursive.” A postage stamp that contains an image of another postage stamp (more common than you might imagine) is called a recursive. Some specialist philatelists collect only recursives. And, yes, if your are wondering, I do have a rather extensive stamp collection. Genetically, I am more pack-rat than human.

Bonne nuit, mes amis.

* When Eunie remarks that I am “trainable, but barely”, she does so with smugness, as if she has accomplished much in the face of great opposition.